Podcast Summary: You Are Not So Smart – Episode 314: "Fluke" with Brian Klaas (Rebroadcast)

Release Date: May 26, 2025
Host: David McRaney
Guest: Dr. Brian Klaas (Associate Professor of Global Politics, UCL; Author of "Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters")

Overview: Exploring the Chaos and Randomness that Shape History and Life

This episode delves into the core ideas of Brian Klaas’s book, Fluke, examining how randomness, chaos, and tiny contingent events, rather than grand designs or big causes, frequently shape the most significant moments in history and our personal lives. Klaas and McRaney challenge the reductionist, individualist worldview and highlight the powerful, often invisible web of interconnectedness and chance that influences everything—from world events to personal choices.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Stimson Vacation: How Small Choices Change History

[03:06–06:05]

• Story Setup: In 1926, Henry and Mabel Stimson vacationed in Kyoto, Japan, falling in love with the city.

• Historical Consequence: Nineteen years later, Henry, then U.S. Secretary of War, prevented Kyoto from being chosen as the first atomic bombing target—purely due to personal affection for the city from that trip. Hiroshima became the target instead.

• Further Randomness: Nagasaki was also bombed, not Kokura, because unforecasted clouds obscured the original target.

• Big Insight: Major world events often hinge on seemingly minor, coincidental, or random events.

  “The immediate reason why Hiroshima was destroyed instead of Kyoto is because of a vacation that a couple took 19 years before the atomic bomb was dropped… and the second bomb was supposed to go to Kokura… but there were clouds.”
  — Brian Klaas [04:29]

2. Proportionality Bias and Conspiracy Thinking

[06:05–08:46]

• Humans are wired to believe that big events require big, complex causes (“proportionality bias”), contributing to conspiracy theories.

• In reality, randomness and chaos play a far greater role than our intuition allows.

  “We have this bias that big events must have big causes... it couldn't just be the unfolding of randomness and chaos.”
  — Brian Klaas [05:08]

3. Contingency vs. Convergence: Two Views of How Life and History Unfold

[08:46–13:57]

• Contingency: Small changes at vital moments can radically alter history (e.g., an asteroid killing the dinosaurs enabled mammalian evolution).

• Convergence: Sometimes, despite randomness, similar solutions or outcomes arise (e.g., the evolution of the camera-like eye in both humans and octopi).

  “If you change one thing, everything shifts, fundamentally.”
  — Brian Klaas [09:35]

• The Snooze Button Effect: Every tiny decision, even hitting snooze, creates ripples affecting the future.

  “Does your life radically change? I think the answer is Almost certainly yes, 100% of the time.”
  — Brian Klaas [10:43]

• We Downplay Present Ripples: We accept time travel’s butterfly effect but ignore how our actions now shape the future.

4. “We Control Nothing but Influence Everything”

[13:57–15:03]

• Quoting Klaas:

  “We control nothing but influence everything.”

• McRaney: If you really grasped this, you’d live as if you just arrived from the future, aware that every act could matter at scale—an unnerving but accurate worldview.

5. Personal Stories: The Origins of Klaas’s Obsession with Chaos and Causality

[15:03–18:27]

• Influences: The movie Sliding Doors—how a missed subway changes a life.
• Political Science Frustration: Studying coups, he saw models collapse under scrutiny of real events (e.g., a failed coup hinging on a single stumble over a wall in Zambia).
• Family History: Klaas only exists because of a mass murder in his ancestry—a direct, disturbing example of contingent existence.

6. Reductionism vs. Relational/Systems Thinking

[23:58–27:29]

• Western culture emphasizes individuals as atoms, focusing on control and optimization.

• Eastern philosophies and systems thinking recognize that everything is defined by relationships and interactions within a larger system.

  “There is so much in science that has shown how unbelievably true the relational viewpoint is…”
  — Brian Klaas [25:48]

7. The Story of Ivan and the Soccer Ball: Everyday Flukes

[27:29–30:33]

• Ivan, swimming off the Greek coast, survives being swept out to sea thanks to a random soccer ball lost by a child ten days earlier and 80 miles away.

• Illustrates that our actions are always part of a vast, invisible tapestry of consequences.

  “…you tweak any little bit of that thread. It’s not just your thread that changes, the whole tapestry. Image shifts.”
  — Brian Klaas [29:00]

8. Finding Meaning in a Chaotic, Random Existence

[31:13–33:41]

• Everyone shapes the future, even if in ways impossible to perceive; every small act matters.

• For some, this points to cosmic purpose (divine or otherwise); for others, meaning is found in simply being part of ongoing existence.

  “…I still think I’m part of this unbelievable thing that is existence, right? And I am part of the tapestry I was talking about.”
  — Brian Klaas [32:20]

• Reference to Vonnegut:

  “Does there need to be a purpose? ...Then I’ll leave it to you to think of one.”

9. Chaos Theory, Laplace’s Demon, and Why Prediction is Impossible

[34:48–41:32]

• Chaos theory arose from meteorology: tiny data changes lead to vastly different outcomes (the "butterfly effect").

• Even with perfect physics models, unpredictability rules after just a few interactions in complex systems.

• Laplace’s demon (a hypothetical superintelligence with perfect knowledge) could, in principle, predict the future, but practical and philosophical limits make this impossible.

  “You have to know every tiny minute detail about the gravitational force in the room to an infinite number of decimal places. Because if you’re off by even a tiny, tiny bit, you will eventually be very, very wrong…”
  — Brian Klaas [39:13]

10. If We Started Human Knowledge Over, Would We Get Shakespeare?

[41:32–46:59]

• Scientific laws might re-emerge, but their discovery, cultural impact, and specifics would fundamentally change with each rerun of history.

• Even “inevitable” ideas (like evolution) depended on messengers and context—if Darwin wasn’t on the Beagle, if Alfred Russel Wallace had published first (and he believed in seances!), the world would not be the same.

• Every outcome is contingent—winning a war is not “the same war” if any details change, like which city is bombed.

  “So even when you change the messenger of an idea, the world shifts... There's no category. The world just unfolds in a continuous pattern...”
  — Brian Klaas [45:25]

11. The Importance of Experimentation & Embracing Uncertainty

[48:55–52:52]

• Evolution works because of undirected random experimentation—most mutations fail, but some create breakthroughs (like the eye).

• Humans are conditioned to optimize and control, but more experimentation (even randomization) brings unexpected benefits.

• Example: During a tube strike in London, 5% of those forced to find a new route stuck with it permanently—it turned out to be better, but they would never have known without being forced to experiment first.

  “…the wisdom of experimentation, it doesn't mean you do it all the time... But like 5 to 10% more experimentation in our lives would probably make us happier.”
  — Brian Klaas [52:12]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On randomness and history:

  “We control nothing but influence everything.”
  — Brian Klaas [13:57]

• On experimentation:

  “…the beauty of evolution is undirected, random experimentation… most of the time the mutation kills the organism, sometimes it makes an eye.”
  — Brian Klaas [48:55]

• On the relational world:

  “Everything is defined by its relation to everything else... reductionists are very, very good at being pragmatic... but it’s still sort of like an illusion.”
  — Brian Klaas [25:48]

• On meaning:

  “Maybe it’s okay that, like, we just get to exist and have really cool lives with interesting people and enjoy interesting experiences. I don’t know. For me, that’s enough.”
  — Brian Klaas [33:25]

• On the arrogance of categories:

  “There's no category. The world just unfolds in a continuous pattern whether the US wins the war or not. The way it wins the war is super important.”
  — Brian Klaas [45:25]

Key Timestamps

• 03:06–06:05: The Kyoto vacation story and how small, personal choices reshape world history.
• 08:46–13:57: Defining contingency and convergence; why every tiny moment matters ("snooze button effect").
• 13:57–15:03: The "we control nothing but influence everything" paradigm.
• 23:58–27:29: Reductionist vs. relational/worldview and the roots of Western individualism.
• 27:29–30:33: Ivan and the soccer ball: lives saved by random, distant actions.
• 34:48–41:32: Chaos theory, Laplace’s demon, and why complete prediction is impossible.
• 41:32–46:59: If history restarted, would science or art be the same?
• 48:55–52:12: Embracing uncertainty and experimentation in our own lives.

Conclusion

The conversation robustly dismantles the myth that individual will and big causes govern history and personal fate. Instead, Klaas and McRaney urge us to see the astonishing ways chance, complexity, and interconnectedness shape outcomes—arguing, ultimately, that every life and every small act is meaningful, precisely because we cannot know the full extent of our influences and ripples.

Recommended for:
Anyone interested in psychology, decision-making, chaos theory, philosophy of history, personal agency, or those wrestling with the meaning of their own impact in a complex world.

For more resources, check YouAreNotSoSmart.com or refer to the show notes.